BBC News recently put up a visual map showing the internet growth from 1998 to 2008. You can scroll through each year and visually see when and where the internet started to grow.
It starts from 1998 where only a few countries had significant number of internet users. Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, Iceland, Netherlands, Denmark, and the United States were the only countries with at least 20% of the population online.
Within 10 years, it is astonishing how quickly the internet penetrated into our daily lives. It was only a decade ago that we all survived freely without the “internet” or “email”. Just 15 years ago, cell phones were novel as well. Now we are very dependent on these technologies – just the mere idea of surviving without them seems unfathomable.
A second tab shows internet user counts around the world. As of the time this post was written? 1,719,053,000 users. 214 billion emails sent TODAY, 455,500 blog posts written TODAY (we claim one of those!) and 2.285 Google searches TODAY. Don’t tell me we are not dependent on the internet!
Question of the Day:
What would happen if the internet crashed completely and we were unable to recover it for months?
What would happen? (anarchy? economy crashes? teens die by boredom?)
Internet Speeds Getting Faster, Asia Leads the Way
Internet speed around the world continues to become faster as technologies advance. That is not a surprise. However the speed difference between a country like Korea and the United States are quite startling.
South Korea, who already has the fastest connection in the world, continues to increase their national internet speed at the fastest rate as well. Korea owns 6 of the top 10 fastest cities in Asia and as a country averages 14.6 Mbps. Compare that to the United States where only 4.4% of users are above 10 Mbps. Korea averages 14.6 Mbps. In Korea 45.6% of users have connections above 10Mbps. 75% are connected above 5 Mbps while only 24% of the United States is at that level.
#1 Korea, #2 Japan, #3 Hong Kong… #12 United States
Compared to 2009, the distribution of connections in South Korea has risen in all the high speed categories. 16% of South Korean users are above 25 Mbps compare to only 1.9% for Japan who falls second in these rankings.
Those Asians are very fast aren't they!
Why the huge gap in South Korea?
The primary reason South Korea sits so far ahead in terms of connection speed, is that Korea has the infrastructure to do so. Back in the late 1990s there was a nationwide focus on developing cutting edge technology. The government built out the infrastructure necessary to get the entire country on high speed broadband. In the United States you have to walk into a Starbucks with an AT&T account or Borders to get some free wifi. Connections are now available everywhere you go. It has become part of the culture and an expectation.
Another more interesting topic, and worth it’s own blog posting, is South Korea’s obsession with Internet Gaming. South Korea could easily be considered the gaming capital of the world. The “elite” of the PC gaming world are often full fledged celebrities as thousands gathers in stadiums to watch the elite play each other on a game of Starcraft. These tournaments are broadcast nationally on TV by five national channels dedicated solely to gaming. Believe it. 1% of all TV watched is accounted for by these channels. That is a lot of people!
South Korea - Starcraft Tournament
Korea has five major leagues for professional Starcraft alone. All the elite gaming teams know if they want fame, they need to travel to Korea to compete in tournaments. These “clans” get corporate sponsorships and wear corporate logos as if they were about to enter into a nascar race. It has become a popular desire for high school boys to pursue a career in being a professional gamer just as boys would want to become a professional basketball player. Even the “commentators” on these networks have become full fledged celebrities just as famous sports commentators.
Some 26,000+ Net cafes and game rooms are found all over the nation where people can come to pay to play games in a room full of fast computers and fast connections. These cafes make up around $6 billion a year from visiting gamers.
With gaming so tightly integrated with Korean culture, it is not surprising that the demand for faster high speed internet continues to raise the bar in terms of internet connection speeds across the nation.
*image source: thomascrampton.com
What are your initial reactions to Korea’s whopping internet speeds?
What are your opinions about the Korean PC Gaming Industry?
How do you feel about the fact that Korean boys dream and seek to become celebrity gamers?
How about the fact that elite gamers are even considered celebrities, with endorsements, fans and immense fame?
On Tuesday February 9th, Google suddenly swooped into the social media fray by introducing Google Buzz. What is Google Buzz? It is a twitter like service for sharing thoughts, multimedia and other information with your friends who are also part of Gmail.
Google Buzz is the Buzz of the Internet
Within 2 days, Google reported they are averaging 160,000 comments and posts per hour. Pretty wild numbers especially considering so many social media companies have tried and failed to stir the social media industry. However let’s remember that lot of people are seeing this for the first time and there are plenty of people who will “buzz” once or twice then proceed to forget about it.
Also unlike other services, Google connected their new service with Gmail which means on the flip of a switch they had millions and millions of users signed up for their service. However it remains to be seen what this service will morph into.
Privacy Controls
There was a huge controversy as soon as Google Buzz went live. Since it is linked directly into Gmail, you are now mixing something private such as your personal email with something as public as Buzz. The result? Lot of angry people.
After Google Wave found criticism for the difficulties of finding other members using it, Google Buzz launched with you connected to tons of people from the get go. All your frequent contacts were automatically added as followers. “Frequency” being quite generous. It could be you emailing them or them emailing you. That’s all it really took. People became very upset that it was easy for people to see who you interact with the most and people who perhaps you do not want to be connected with were automatically being connected because they had emailed you sometime before.
Why the anger? It also opened up access to one’s Google profile thus allowing access to Google Reader Comments and Picasa Albums.
However it really makes one think:
Do people have that much to hide that it brings up so much passionate anger?
Why is it so bad other people can see your buzz conversation?
Does this outcry over privacy reveal anything about our culture and what we value?
Note: If you want it private conversation, don’t use a public tool!
Google Responds Quickly
Google responded very quickly in shoring up the Privacy Concerns by making the auto-follow into an auto-suggest. But for those who were activated early? You’ll have to manually block everyone.
They also added an option to block others from seeing your list as well as the ability shut off buzz altogether.
I was going to post some instructionals on how to deal with privacy issues and also how to shut off buzz, but Google keeps changing the process. All the tutorials out there are outdated. Google outsmarted us again!
Google Buzz UPDATE:
If you’d like to alter your privacy settings you go to “settings” on the top right corner of your gmail, then hit “buzz”. This “buzz” link seemed to be being implemented slowly as different people were unable to see it until very recently. See screenshot below:
What is the Purpose of Google Buzz?
Can you think of a good reason to use Google Buzz?
What niche do you figure it will fill considering Facebook and Twitter are already well established?
Nominees for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize includes a Russian human rights group, a Chinese dissident and of course the Internet.
Nobel Peace Prize Founder Alfred Nobel: Not Amused
Say what?
The Internet to Win the Nobel Peace Prize?
Yes, the Internet was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. This is the year after Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for doing nothing at the time he won. It sparked a lot of debate on the value of the Nobel Peace Prize as well as the whether the committee should ever award a nomination based on “potential” rather than concrete actions. Before discussing the Internet, let’s note the other real-human candidates that are known at this time.
Svetlana Gannushkina – Russian Human Rights
One nomination is a Russian human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina and her group “Memorial”. Nominated by Erna Solberg, the head of Norway’s Conservative Party, this organization often leads the criticism against the Kremlin.
“These are people who are at the forefront of human rights and are putting their lives at risk for their work,” Solberg told The Associated Press.
Liu Xiaobo, Chinese Dissident
Kwame Anthony Appiah, president of the PEN American Center and a Princeton philosophy professor mentioned that he had nominated Liu Xiaobo. Liu Xiaobo is a Chinese dissident who was jailed by the government. Kwame Anthony Appiah says that he nominated Liu due to his “distinguished and principled leadership in the area of human and political rights and freedom of expression.” The Chinese government is obviously against this nomination.
“It would be completely wrong for the Nobel Prize committee to award the prize to such a person,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu
George Ryan, Former Illinois Governor
Francis A. Boyle, a law professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, nominated Former Illinois Governor George Ryan who is currently in jail for federal corruption charges. He was nominated for his campaign to abolish the death penalty.
Alfred Nobel: 2010 Winner.. What the heck is an Internet?
Would they really give the Nobel Peace Prize to the Internet?
Last year’s choice of Obama already stirred a great deal of controversy as Obama had just joined office and had no real accomplishments that warranted the prize. Some felt that it cheapened the Award.
This year, some speculate that due to the controversy the committee may select a conservative winner. Others say that last year is just more evidence that we can expect anything.
Alfred Nobel left simple, vague instructions on how to select winners in his 1895 will. It was to promote “fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies”. It was meant for people who promoted peace through what they did. This definition has since been broadened by the Nobel Committee to also include human rights activist and the protection of the environment. The Nobel Committee is appointed by Norway’s parliament.
Why mention Nobel Peace Prize on this Blog?
The mere fact that the Internet is being nominated for what is considered one of the greatest awards today speaks volumes about how central internet has become.
Plus the internet is a mixed bag. Yes the internet has brought upon great proliferation of information and news. Yes, it has connected people from all around the world. It has opened new doors and opportunities to collaborate. It has truly been amazing. However we also know the Internet has caused a whole new set of emotional issues. It has opened the world to wide spread pornography and other degrading material for easy access to all ages. It has caused more people to waste more time staring at a screen whether it be simply cruising the internet or playing online multi-player video games. Our children grow up watching 8 hours of screen time a day, a huge chunk of that watching videos or tv shows on the Internet. 8 hours per day. There are many studies and professionals who mourn at the influence of media on our children’s development.
Nobel Peace Prize Nomination Process
Before getting carried away, let’s remember that numerous people are nominated every year for the Nobel Peace Prize. The information regarding who was nominated is not released by the Nobel Foundation until 50 years after the prize, but some information is made public by the ones who nominate the candidate. Yes the Internet was nominated, but in the past so was Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, and believe it or not Adolf Hitler, thought the latter was done out of protest to the nomination of a different candidate. Meanwhile candidates like Mohandas Gandhi was nominated several times but never awarded.
What is your first gut reaction to this news?
What do you think? Does the Internet warrant consideration?
Do you think if the Internet wins the Nobel Peace Prize, it cheapens the Prize?
Kaiser Family Foundation released their most recent media usage study. Six years ago they found the usage of 8 to 18 year old was about 6 hours and 21 minutes of media consumption a day. This recent study shows that the media consumption rate has risen to 7 hours and 38 minutes. That is almost as much time as adults spend at work except remember that adults only work 5 days a week.
The amount of media consumed by children has always been a point of concern as media has been found to have great affects in molding a child’s view of the world. It has become all the more important that parents watch over what their children are consuming and what kind of message they are taking in.
Some things parents can do are to regulate what kind and what type of media their children consume. Another is to watch what your kids are watching together so you can explain how best to process the message it portrays. Another is to ensure internet safety for kids with tools that can supervise online activities.
With the proliferation of online media, increased video sharing, and mobile media – these numbers are shocking, yet they are not a surprise.
For the first time, Traditional TV consumption actually fell as other mediums such as video games, music, online media and movie watching has increased. What is even more wild is that kids are often watching multiple forms of media at once. The actual consumption of media was found to be closer to 10 hours and 45 minutes.
Search engines had no choice but to comply to the Chinese government’s demands in order to make inroads into China’s 1.3 billion population. Thus it is big news today that Google announced they will no longer comply and will pull out of China if needed be. This was partially a response to a sophisticated and targeted attack on their corporate infrastructure. Google found an organized attack that originated from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property. It was an attack targeting 20+ large companies from different range of businesses. However what made this attack significant was that there is strong evidence that the primary goal of the attacker was to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activist. They also discovered that independent of this attack, that the email accounts of these human right activist were “routinely accessed by third parties” via phishing scams and malware placed on their computer.
Chinese Censorship History
China has been heavily criticized in the past for unfairly monitoring and putting down human rights activist. In the Beijing Olympics, China communicated as if their people were free to voice their opinions but had strict and often unfair methods of jailing anyone who would protest (most protests has to do with human rights). The Chinese government is also notorious for unfairly jailing activist as well as people of faith.
Google’s Stance on Chinese Censorship over Time
When Google launched in china, they noted “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.” It seems Google has finally had it and has thrown down the gauntlet.
“These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”
Basically, no more censorship or we bounce. The choice is up to China. Whether other search engines will follow suit is still to be determined.
This isn’t the first time Google and China butted heads. China’s CIIRC (China Internet Illegal information Reporting Center) has several times made demands for specific items to be blocked and has even blocked full sites like Google, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr when sites did not meet their demands.
Search Engine Shares in China: Google, Baidu, MSN, Yahoo
Yahoo had long ago pulled out of direct competition in China but since then took the tactic of making investments into local search players. Yahoo has been sued several times by pro-democracy advocates who claimed Yahoo gave personal information to the Chinese authorities. In November ComScore showed that Baidu had 62.2% of the Chinese search market while Google only had 14.1%, MSN at 5.1%. However Analysys International, a research firm in Beijing, said that Baidu’s share was closer to 58.4% in Q4 compared to 35.6% in Google. As of last tuesday, Baidu’s shares jumped in stock price.
How will China Respond to Google’s Stance on Censorship
How will China response? This is not just an issue between Google and China, but a political issue. Google doesn’t have the power to convince China to change it’s ways and China will not lose out on much by letting Google go, however China can’t be happy with bad press they are receiving through this ordeal and the political aftermath if Google eventually has to leave.
[UPDATE] As expected, China gave an indifferent response. Basically anyone who wants to do business in China must follow their laws. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu, “The Chinese government administers the Internet according to law and we have explicit stipulations over what content can be spread on the Internet.” If Google sticks to their guns, they’ll have to simply move their way out of China. But should they?
What do you think? Will Google have to leave or will there be some resolution?
What is your position on this?
Will China ever blink or will they continue to hold an iron grip on it’s media?
Google still reigns the search world with 65% search share (data from comScore Oct). Yahoo currently holds shy of 19% search share though that figure is expected to rise once the Yahoo/ Microsoft deal is complete.
You’ll find the data quite revealing about what our culture truly cares about.
Note that these are searches on Yahoo & Bing. This does not include Google.
One the more popular video genres on YouTube are the what I call the statistical videos. The “Did You Know” videos went viral as the eye popping statistics are always fun to share and read about. Though be aware that some of the newer videos are spoofs and contain fake data (though to their credit they acknowledge it in the end).
Socialnomics Videos – Is Social Media a Fad?
The video below is a similar statistical video covering the growth and impact of social media. It asks the question, is social media a fad? This message probably targets business and companies that often debate whether allocating money to social media is worth the costs. Then it follows by bombarding you with the incredible growth and impact of social media on our every day lives. I’ve also compiled some social media statistics from other sources below.
Sorry – The video was made “private” due to copyright issues socialnomics is having. But please do check out the LATEST socialnomics video here!
What is Social Media?
To be clear, Social Media isn’t just Facebook and Twitter. It includes a whole network of sites where users can interact with one another whether it is by sharing information or discussing various topics. Some of the more popular social media sites that you may not at first consider to be part of this group are sites like Digg (Share Links & News), Stumbleupon (Share & Discover Websites), Delicious (Share Favorites), Wikipedia (Share Information), Flickr (Share Pictures), Blogging (Share Anything), YouTube (Share Videos), Linkedin (Professional Social Network) and so on. As you can imagine, social media has grown tremendously and has changed the landscape of information exchange and communication.
More Social Media Statistics
3 out of 4 Americans use social technology
(Forrester, The Growth of Social Technology Adoption, 2008)
2/3rd of Global Internet Population Visit Social Networks
(Nielsen, Global Faces & Networked Places, 2009)
Social Sites – 4th most popular online activity, ahead of personal email
(Nielsen, Global Faces & Networked Places, 2009)
Time Spent on Social Networks growing at 3x overall internet rate.
Accounts for 10% of all Internet Time (Nielsen, Global Faces & Networked Places, 2009)
“Technology is shifting the power away from the editors, the publishers, the establishment, the media elite. Now it’s people who are in control” Rubert Murdock, Global Media Entrepreneur”
13 Hours of video uploaded on YouTube every minute
412.3 years – length of time it would take to view every YouTube video
100,000,000 – # of YouTube videos viewed per day
13,000,000 – # of articles on Wikipedia
3,600,000 – # of photos archived on Flickr.com as of June 2009
1382% – Monthly Growth Rate of Twitter Jan to Feb 2009
3,000,000 Tweets per Day on Twitter
5,000,000,000 – # of minutes spent on Facebook every day
1,000,000,000 – # of content (web links, news, blogs post, photos etc) share on Facebook each week
“The word blog is irrelevant. What’s important is that it is now common, and will soon be expected, that every intelligent person (and quite a few unintelligent ones) will have a media platform where they share what they care about with the world.” Seth Godin, Author
5,000,000 – # of active Barack Obama supporters across 15 social networks
14,200,000 – # of views Obama’s “Yes we can video” got on YouTube
$6,500,000 – Amount of money donated online to Obama’s campaign
Facebook in terms of members would be the 8th most populated county in the world. (Mark Zuckerberg, Jan 2009)
By July 2009, it has risen to 4th (via video)
Hope you enjoy the social media statistics video! Please share your thoughts below.
[poll id=”13″]
What is your reaction to the rise of social media?
How much do you use Facebook, Myspace, Twitter? Do you Blog?
Do you find it helpful?
Do you feel Social Media is a fad or it is here to stay?
Arbor Networks recently released a large scale study on internet usage utilizing the data from 110 geographically diverse Internet service providers and tens of millions of subscribers. One of the more fascinating points of this study is when internet usage peaks for US internet users.
There was once a point where Internet usage peaked at 8AM in the morning when most US visitors get into work. However this new study showed that Internet usage now peaks at 11PM Eastern time and stays high until 3AM in the morning. This is unique to the United States as Europe was found to peak around 7PM then drop sharply for the rest of the night. Other than a slight dip during dinner hours, US users continue to use the Internet at a high rate during the late hours of the day.
North American Website Usage
This graph on the right displays the traffic cycle of North American internet users. The blue line marks internet usage through the day showing the most usage in the late afternoon, a slight drip during dinner and a significant spike at 11PM in the evening. The yellow segment is cable / dsl traffic which signifies consumer usage and attempts to exclude business traffic. The graph clearly shows that consumers play a huge role in the late night peak.
What are They Doing Online so Late!
Online Gaming – Grows 60% after 2PM. Spikes between 8PM-11PM.
Team Gaming – The social nature of gaming contributes to the sudden spikes and drops as seen in the World of Worldcraft usage. A team or a “guild” of players will schedule a time to play together thus causing massive spikes and drops in the usage data.
Online Video Watching – Peaks at Midnight.
Instant Messaging – IM usage is constant throughout the day while reaching 80% of peak at 10AM and maintaining that rate until midnight.
The study showed that the rise in usage was not necessarily due to higher number of users surfing the web. In fact Arbor’s analysis suggested that web surfing was constant throughout the day. The data revealed that video watching and online gaming contributed greatly to the late night peak. Though instant messaging and video watching is done throughout the day, video watching starts to rise in the evenings while online gaming jumps as soon as work is over. It skyrockets right after dinner time, peaks around 11PM and carries for the next few hours. We do have to consider the three hour difference between the east and west coasts to account for usage from 12PM to 3AM.
When do you use the internet the most? [Non-Business Use]
[poll id=”12″]
When do you find yourself using the Internet the most?
What do you think is contributing to the late night spike?
Do you find these trends surprising or not surprising?
The Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) came out with a study this week that suggests that gaming habits developed as a youth carries with them into adulthood. Specifically those who played video games as a child or a teenager have a trend to become inactive and have more health issues.
The study included 552 adults between 19 and 90 in the Washington State area. Gaming once was considered a children centric activity but in this study, 50% of gamers were found to be within the 18 to 49 age while 25% were 50 and older. Those in the younger age between 8 to 34 showed many signs of addiction.
Most people I speak to think social network sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter are new, trendy and hip, but that does not mean it is popular among the youth.
In a study of 250,000 US internet users, Nielsen has released statistics showing that though 25% of internet users are under the age of 25, only 16% of twitter users in the same range.
Who is the cause of Growth on Twitter?
The 18-24 year old demographic who are normally the early adopters of social networks were the least likely to visit Twitter while the 45-54 year olds were the most likely, followed closely by the 25-34 year old age group.
If you have not already heard, a young musician named Dave Carroll wrote and produced a music video called “United Breaks Guitars” after his Taylor 714 CE ($3000+ guitar), was broken by the United Airlines Baggage crew and United refused to pay or replace his instrument. Dave Carroll had saved money to purchase this guitar for three years with the hope that once he graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa he could pursue his pro music aspirations.
United Breaks Guitars Video Goes Viral!
His video immediately went viral as millions of viewers shared and viewed his music video. He has become a citizen hero to all travelers. When Dave Carroll called in, he kept being transferred to different people unable to get his issue addressed. Then finally when he did reach someone who could have helped, United refused to pay for the instrument. This is despite the fact that another witness on the plane clearly saw the baggage crew literally tossing the guitar and is quoted as saying “My God, they’re throwing guitars around out there!”
Carroll had heard that remark but didn’t connect the dots as he was tired from already traveling for 12 hours. He had carefully protected his guitar in placing his hardshell guitar case into a foam bag. The next day when he opened the guitar case he found it caved in. “I put my hand around the back of the guitar, around the tail pin, and felt that it had just caved in. I probably swore… and what do you say when your guitar caves in like that? There was a silence, and I just put it back in the case.”
He called United but kept getting routed to different employees. He took it to a guitar shop hoping to get it fixed. It cost him $1,200 to fix the guitar but for those who know guitars, the guitar clearly was never the same again.
With the video going viral (currently at 4.1 million YouTube views), United did finally relent and offered to pay for the guitar. They issued this statement: “While we mutually agree that this should have been fixed much sooner, [Dave Carroll’s] excellent video provides us with a unique learning opportunity that we would like to use for training purposes to ensure all customers receive better service from us.”
Dave Carroll’s Intentions with United Breaks Guitars
Dave Carroll has said that when the incident occurred he was angry, but the song he created wasn’t meant for revenge, but is a “light-hearted song, and the idea is to find humor in a situation that is to tragic and happens too often”. Dave Carroll did not accept the offer from United, neither from Taylor which kindly offered to provide him a brand new instrument. He has benefited personally from the attention as he was able to sell a few hundred CDs. His mom helps pack the discs into envelopes to ship them out at home. He has also been offered to do gigs in different locations.
Dave Carroll has said that United should find “someone who is a musician, and might not have the money to fly for medical reasons, and just give them the money to give them a lift — no pun intended. I thought that would be a fantastic idea”.
United ended up choosing to give $3000 to the Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz, an educational organization which among its board of trustees is the United managing director Sonya Jackson. Well, at least they gave it to someone.
Future United Breaks Guitar Videos
As the “United Breaks Guitar” was originally announced as a 3 part series everyone is waiting in anticipation for part two and three. With the extra publicity, there has been more volunteers to help him shoot the videos. Here at Clean Cut Media, we’ll post the other two once they go public.
United Breaks Guitars – Statement from Dave Carroll
Influence of Social Media & the Shifting of Influence
A story like this is not uncommon. There are numerous stories where a consumer who was upset, utilized the web to let the world know how they were treated. When these stories pick up enough steam the accused company has to step in for public relation reasons. This puts a lot of pressure on companies to keep their consumers happy and treat them well. However it also puts a lot of influence and power on the shoulders of the consumer, forcing companies to allocate resources just to make sure an incident like this does not happen. It is a fascinating dynamic that has spawned from the social networking power of the web. With the ability to share one’s story with millions both in the medium of postings or in this case, a well made video, it makes it very easy for a consumer to heavily damage the reputation of a company. It is easy to side with the consumer since the consumer is indeed the little guy, but let’s also remember that many are unlike the kind-hearted Dave Carroll. Out of anger or a personal vendetta, a single consumer can embellish stories and fabricate rumors that even if they are discovered to be unfounded could put a heavy dent into a companies reputation or image resulting in drops in sales and ultimately loss of jobs. The power of the internet as a medium of communication is powerful, but as they say, with great power comes great responsibility. Unfortunately when anyone can access that power (especially those motivated by anger), the outcome becomes unpredictable.
What are your thoughts on the video?
Has the internet been a huge win for consumers as a single person can make a huge impact on the dealings of a large corporation? Or is it too damaging for companies for the consumer to have so much influence?
It has been no secret that the Chinese government censors the media. China has received great criticism over their internet censorship such as blocking historical content that hurts the government’s image (i.e. tiananmen square), 
Google still reigns the search world with 65% search share (data from comScore Oct). Yahoo currently holds shy of 19% search share though that figure is expected to rise once the Yahoo/ Microsoft deal is complete.
The Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) came out with a study this week that suggests that gaming habits developed as a youth carries with them into adulthood. Specifically those who played video games as a child or a teenager have a trend to become inactive and have more health issues.
